Following the successful October 2014 visit to Germany to our Twin Town Gifhorn, plans have been developed to receive a Gifhorn Delegation to jointly commemorate the 200th Anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo and to continue to strengthen links through educational and economic opportunities between our towns.
A full programme for the visit has been planned to ensure the commemoration is marked with a trip to Waterloo Monument where the Provost, Burgermeister and a member of New Abbey Community Council will lay wreaths.
Following on from this there is a visit to New Abbey School where the pupils have been working on a project about the Battle of Waterloo where the pupils will welcome and deliver a performance for the delegation. In the afternoon serious business will be discussed at the Strengthening Links Conference where the key topics are Creative Arts, Football, Educational and Work Experiences and the resulting Economic Benefits that can be made.
On Saturday 6 June at the Plainstanes in Dumfries, Electric Theatre will be marking Waterloo with a street theatre performance they have created using puppetry and this kicks off at 11am. The delegation will visit key sites in the town including St Michael’s Church, Dock Park (where the Dumfries Wind Band will be playing from 3pm in the band stand) and then the Museum to view the Waterloo Exhibition before leaving on Sunday.
Provost for Dumfries, Councillor Ted Thompson said;
“Although the recent links between the towns only go back twenty years the connections between us stretch back 200 years to the battle of Waterloo when soldiers from both areas fought on the same side in the defeat of Napoleon’s French forces. Unfortunately we could not mark the commemoration on the exact date due to the Guid Nychburris festival and a corresponding festival in Gifhorn but New Abbey community Council are making their own plans to do this on the eighteenth of June. The conference has been designed to strengthen the links between the towns and is the first step in exploring the commercial opportunities open to local businesses as the next step.”
